


The Other Side

by thyrza



Series: Assemble, Disassemble, Reassemble [7]
Category: Avengers Assemble (Cartoon)
Genre: Blow Jobs, Clothed Sex, Earth-TRN123, Friends to Lovers, Frottage, Kitchen Sex, M/M, More than Friends with Benefits, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Team Mom and Dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 14:30:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6011233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thyrza/pseuds/thyrza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Space travel, dimension-hopping, and even a Cosmic Skull -- Steve Rogers has faced a lot of challenges since waking up from seventy years in the ice. But one thing is for sure: it's a lot easier with Tony Stark at his side.</p>
<p>(Post-Episodes S01E25, "Exodus" and E26, "The Final Showdown.")</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Other Side

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally intended for my 2015 Cap-IM bingo card's "kitchen fun" square, but I am bad at deadlines, so I am posting this anyway, outside of that challenge.
> 
> It will make more sense if you have seen the season finale (S01E25-26) of Avengers Assemble season 1 - so much occurs in the two-parter leading up to the end of the season that I've skipped my customary summary - and will spoil it for anyone who hasn't. I think it's still readable without having seen the episode (if you don't care about spoilers), because Tony and Steve both explain a lot of the conflict in their dialogue and the narrative.
> 
> As an additional note, I make mention of Edwin Jarvis in a way that draws more of a parallel with MCU's Jarvis (as seen on _Agent Carter_ ), since AA seems to currently be more in the style of the MCU than the comics, especially with the handling of Howard (and the fact that Steve clearly knew him in this universe).
> 
> I believe this also marks the last of season 1 for this series, unless some particular notion strikes me, so I'll be moving on to season 2 soon!

* * *

 

 

Steve was not quite sure when he dozed off, but he woke up sometime later with the disoriented feeling that always came with an unexpected nap. He was still sprawled on a chair in the communal living room of the penthouse, in his uniform and boots; all the others were gone, but someone had thoughtfully draped a blanket over Steve’s torso and removed the piece of his shield that had been strapped on his arm. Steve’s heart twinged at the sight of the broken fragment of his beloved shield that lay on the coffee table. He had never before considered that it would be possible to break the shield, but if Howard Stark had been capable of forging the vibranium alloy in the first place, then the opposite might be true. Steve resolved not to think of it just now; surely there was something Tony would be able to do to fix it.

For now, Steve needed food and a shower, and probably in that order. He lurched to his feet and followed the sounds coming from the kitchen, where someone else had clearly had the same idea. Steve was a little surprised to find Tony there, out of the armor and already showered and in a fresh t-shirt and jeans. Tony looked up from his place at the stove when Steve walked in, and offered an easy, tired smile.

“Hey, Cap,” Tony said. “You hungry?”

“Starving,” Steve admitted. He tugged off his gloves and tucked them into his belt. “You need any help?”

“Nah.” Tony stepped aside and gestured at the single pot on a burner next to the griddle where a pair of sandwiches seared away. “It’s just grilled cheese and tomato soup.”

“Sounds good,” Steve said. His stomach rumbled loudly, prompting him to add, “And smells good.”

Tony laughed softly. “Sorry about letting you sleep out there, by the way. I tried to wake you up, but you were pretty out of it.”

Steve got a glass from the cabinet and tried to keep the judgment from his tone as he said, “It’s been a long few days.”

Tony winced anyway. So much for that.

Filling the glass with water and committing to chug it all down was a good enough excuse for a pause in a conversation that had always been destined to be awkward. Steve finished it all and began to refill it before he offered, “For you and for everyone else.”

“Today was such a day I thought some comfort food might be in order,” Tony said, gamely making an attempt to keep things light between them. “Jarvis - the original Jarvis, my dad’s butler when I was a kid - used to make this for me whenever I had a bad day.”

Tony paused, then added, “So ... I ate a lot of grilled cheese when I was a kid.”

Steve was unsure what to say to that. Tony rarely spoke of his father, and even less of his childhood. Whenever Howard did come up in conversation, it was usually because Steve slipped and made some mention of a man he had only known as a friend, until learning - much to Steve’s dismay - that his old friend had gone on to be, by all accounts, an absentee father at best and an actively terrible one at worst.

Tony didn’t seem to mind that Steve wasn’t sharing in his moment of opening up. “I miss him,” he said, staring resolutely down at the sandwiches. “Did you know him?”

Steve shook his head. “No,” he said, regretfully. “He must have been a little after my time.”

“Dad met him during the war,” Tony said. “So I just thought - maybe ... well, it doesn’t matter.”

“Tell me about him?” Steve asked. “I don’t mind listening.”

But Tony’s walls, those last barriers around what was left of his personal life that he kept carefully protected from Steve, had already gone up again. “It’s okay,” he said, his attention hyper-focused on cutting the sandwiches on the diagonal, before he shifted them from the griddle to waiting plates. “You wanna grab us some bowls?”

The moment was gone, and Steve tried not to take its loss personally. For all that he and Tony were close - that Tony was Steve’s best friend in this brave new world - they still had only a few years of friendship behind them, and it would clearly take more time before they were ready to share everything. Steve was willing to wait. There were plenty of things he hadn’t yet found a way to tell Tony, either, after all. The things that related directly to Tony, to their friendship - and their relationship - came easy, now. But Steve had lived nearly thirty years in an entirely different place in time, had been shaped by a difficult childhood, in a society that had experienced one world war and was in the throes of a second by the time he stepped up and became Captain America. He and Tony were different as people, but Steve believed, with all his heart, that those differences made them work even better together. It just didn’t make the tough conversations, the places where they did clash, go any smoother.

They settled down at the kitchen table, finding a place for their dishes among the scattering of arrows and computer parts and pizza boxes piled on its surface, and ate in companionable silence for a long few minutes before Tony spoke again.

“I took a lot of things personally,” he said, “these last few days.”

“We all do, sometimes,” Steve said, trying to keep diplomatic about it.

Tony pushed his empty plate and bowl aside, and sat back in his chair, looking at Steve evenly. “I thought I was acting for the good of everyone.”

“Whether the numbers you ran matched up to the scenario you expected,” Steve answered patiently, “the outcome was still in our favor.”

“I handed leadership over to you,” Tony said. “I said I would back your play, then I kept ignoring everything you asked me to do.”

Steve sighed, setting aside his own dishes. “Part of what makes the Avengers so effective as a team is that we can all adapt to the necessary changes.”

Tony looked away. “You kept asking me to join you in the field, and I refused, because I was afraid I was going to get someone else hurt.”

“Tony,” Steve said firmly. “You did what you thought was right, what was necessary. I might have been frustrated by it at the time, but if you had been out there worrying about what happened to everyone else, then it would have made you a liability. I know we’ve had a lot of arguments over this in the past, but in this case - it was right. You saved the world.”

Tony took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “ _We_ saved the world.”

“We saved the world,” Steve agreed, smiling softly back at him. “And you cooked, so I’m going to do dishes, then - hopefully - we can go to bed and get some rest.”

Steve got to his feet, gathering the dishes, and Tony bustled around the kitchen while Steve did the washing up, putting things away and wiping down the counters. Steve wouldn’t have imagined, when they got the team back together all those months ago, that they might end up here. It was bizarrely domestic, and undeniably comfortable, even if Steve was washing dishes in his uniform.

“So,” Tony said, when Steve was finished drying his hands and had turned away from the counter. “The kids are all asleep ...”

Steve laughed; so much for avoiding being labeled _Mom and Dad_. “I need about ten hot showers before I’ll feel human again, Tony - and ten more before I’ll feel up to fooling around.”

“Steve.” Tony stepped closer and rested his hands on the front of Steve’s uniform, the thumb and index finger of each of Tony’s hands framing the star on Steve’s chest. “It has recently come to my attention that, of all the times we’ve _fooled around_ , it has almost never been while you’re in uniform. And that’s tragic.”

Steve looked down at Tony’s hands, then up at Tony’s face; he dragged his lower lip between his teeth, considering the temptation on offer here. As if sensing that Steve was close to caving in, Tony went in for the kill and eased one leg up, pressing his thigh right against Steve’s groin. Traitor that it was to all of Steve’s sense of propriety and decorum, his cock almost immediately stirred at the suggestion.

“There was, uh ... that time ... on the quinjet ...” Steve said.

“Oh, yeah,” Tony said, his expression brightening. “When I kicked on the autopilot and went down on you.”

The thought clearly did not deter Tony, or his own desires; Steve’s attempts to wriggle out were clearly doing more harm to his cause than good. What _was_ the harm, really? Aside from the fact that they were in the kitchen, where anyone could walk in on them, or that he really _did_ feel around ten hot showers away from being clean again?

“But,” Tony added, “that was ... before.”

There was a very distinct way that Tony said _before_ , that lent the word all the meaning it needed for Steve to understand that Tony was talking about the first time they were involved with each other. Back then, their affair really had been frantic and secret, and it dissolved as easily as the team had, when the Avengers disbanded. The months they spent apart after that had been some of the longest of Steve’s life. He was the one who hadn’t wasted any time rekindling things when they got back together.

“That morning, right after you moved in,” Tony said. “Here, in the kitchen ... that was kind of big for us.”

Steve found his voice at last and admitted, “I was nervous you wouldn’t want to do that again, actually.”

It was probably a sign of how far they still had to go, that this was the first time they’d really stopped to talk about it.

“Are you kidding?” Tony asked. He laughed, and leaned in to kiss Steve on the chin. “I missed you like crazy.”

Tony could have changed that any time he liked, Steve thought to himself; he could have called or come to visit or even sent a message. Instead, Tony’s solution to missing Steve - and any of the other Avengers - had been patently _Tony_ : keeping tabs on them through his satellite network, and coming to their aid when necessary.

Prudently, Steve chose not to say any of this to Tony. He had a feeling that Tony didn’t need to be told, and one important facet to their relationship thus far had been learning the right place and time for certain conversations. The last few days had been long and stressful. There were a lot of important things that Captain America and Iron Man needed to talk about.

Right now, though, Steve Rogers only felt a need to show Tony Stark just how much he loved him. How relieved he was that they were still here, that they had survived to share another moment like this.

“I missed you, too,” Steve said, and he followed the words with a kiss that had a little something bittersweet to it, or maybe he was just imagining that part of things, tired and addled as he was.

Tony certainly seemed relatively unaffected by the day, all things considered; his hands were sure and determined as he worked open the front of Steve’s uniform. Tony’s confidence was a reassurance, his fingers steady while they unfastened Steve’s belt.

“Oh,” Steve gasped in surprise, when Tony broke away from the kiss and slid down to his knees on the kitchen floor. “Tony -”

Steve was already half-hard in his pants, and his cock eagerly responded to Tony’s touch, the way that Tony mouthed at the bulge of Steve’s growing erection through the layers of fabric. In spite of the purposeful way that Tony tugged down Steve’s zipper, it felt like an eternity before Steve was finally freed from the confines of his uniform.

Steve gripped the edge of the counter, watching as Tony stroked him, as Tony’s mouth closed around the head of Steve’s cock. Watching was almost too much, and Steve moaned as Tony took him deeper, too affected to avoid making noise at the sight and feel of it. He would just have to hope that everyone else had gone to bed, or would be too tired to investigate; there were probably worse ways their teammates could find out, but Steve was having a hard time thinking of any. (He was probably deluding himself, imagining that any of them didn’t know, in the first place. He could readily think of at least one who most certainly did.)

Tony seemed to think that Steve was concentrating too hard on something that wasn’t Tony’s mouth on him, because Tony’s efforts redoubled, his cheeks hollowing as he slipped further down Steve’s length and sucked harder. It worked; Steve’s attention reoriented fully on Tony. He settled his free hand on Tony’s shoulder, caressed the edge of Tony’s jaw with his thumb. Tony had a light dusting of stubble that made his beard look a little less perfect than usual, and Steve had a fleeting thought about how Tony must have been well and truly tired to be this cavalier about his appearance, and here he was with his knees on the hard tile, and Steve really should probably do something about that, no matter how amazing Tony’s mouth felt, or what magical things Tony’s tongue was doing.

“Tony,” Steve said, except his partner’s name came out more like an incoherent grunt. He took a breath and tried again, “ _Tony_.”

Tony paused, eyes flitting up to Steve’s face, and whatever he found on Steve’s expression (aside from heavy-lidded and deeply aroused) was enough to inspire him to stop, albeit reluctantly. He slowly pulled off, and tipped his head back to look questioningly up at Steve, his parted lips red and slick.

“Come here,” Steve urged gently.

Tony’s expression darkened as he got to his feet; did he think Steve was rejecting him? Steve tugged Tony in closer, slipped his arm around Tony’s waist, until his hand could slide under the hem of Tony’s t-shirt and rest on the small of his back, offering leverage for Steve to press their bodies together.

“That was amazing,” Steve murmured, “but I really missed kissing you.”

That was enough to smooth Tony’s ruffled feathers; Steve got a smile in return. “Sentimental,” Tony accused, teasing, his lips nearly close enough to Steve’s for them to touch.

“Romantic,” Steve countered, and he closed the short distance for a kiss. He relinquished his grip on the counter and worked his hand between them instead, thumbing open Tony’s jeans with relative ease.

Tony was hard, cock straining against the fabric of his briefs, and he moaned into the kiss with something that sounded like relief once Steve had his clothes out of the way. Everything was much better naked, of course; their hips slotted together and Steve’s hands came around to rest on Tony’s ass, encouraging the way that Tony rocked against him.

And, alright, maybe doing this in the kitchen was pretty far from being as romantic as Steve would have liked to be right now, but little in their relationship had been conventional, and it suited them well enough, didn’t it?

Tony gripped Steve’s shoulders, and put his genius to work in the way he shifted against Steve until they could move together in a better rhythm, Tony’s cock a hot and hard length against Steve’s own.

Steve was exhausted, and he knew Tony had to be, too, and it showed in the sloppy desperation of the way they rutted against each other in those last few seconds - as Steve climbed toward his climax, and the force of it punched a moan out of him as he finally came, breaking that tension. Tony followed within seconds, and Steve had to hurriedly put his arms tight around Tony’s waist, just to keep Tony from sagging and sliding away as he went decidedly boneless against Steve.

“That was ...” Tony began, before giving up on the effort to decide what it was.

“It always is,” Steve said, just assuming that whatever Tony was thinking of saying on the matter, it was going to be positive. He straightened up, and began setting their clothes back to rights, at least enough for them to make it to one of their bedrooms (and, in Steve’s case, a shower).

“Even if you did interrupt my attempt to take care of you,” Tony said, and it was clear he was trying to keep his tone light, but there was still a complaint in the words. He took a step back from the counter and allowed Steve to steer their way from the kitchen.

“Tony,” Steve said. “You always take good care of me. You made sure I wouldn’t get cold sleeping in the living room. You made me dinner.” It had not escaped Steve’s notice, after all, that Tony prepared enough food for two.

Tony offered Steve a small, tentative smile. He spent a moment probably turning the words over in his head - Steve could practically see the gears turning - before he said, “The last few days have been really rough.”

They reached Steve’s bedroom first, and he led the way inside, closing the door before he tried to respond, or derail this potentially dangerous train of thought for Tony. They already talked about this, and Steve didn’t want to see Tony blaming himself any more for what happened. “And we came out on the other side,” he said.

“Yeah.” Tony took a deep breath, and the next words left him nearly in a rush: “I just wanted to tell you that I’m glad we’re all okay. And that we’re together. And - I love you.”

Steve smiled, pleased beyond words that Tony was willing to open himself up to such vulnerability. “I love you, too, Tony.”

Tony returned the smile, and that made everything seem brighter, the way it lit up his entire face. “Now come on, I’ll wash your back.”

“And I’ll tuck you into bed,” Steve countered as they headed toward the en suite - a quick reminder that they could take care of each other.

“And in the morning, we’ll make breakfast for the kids, like good parents,” Tony added, grinning over his shoulder.

“Together,” Steve agreed. Like it was always meant to be.

 

* * *

 


End file.
